Elkabous Emptied My Mother’s Accounts After Her Passing

I arrived in Casablanca on the night of April 3, 2024. The next day, April 4, I visited the graves of my parents and my brother. That same day, I confronted Soufiane Elkabous about his scheme to steal my parents’ home and learned that their belongings had been taken, stolen, or removed.

On the morning of April 5, I went to the BMCI Val d’Anfa branch with my Moroccan national ID and my mother’s death certificate. I wanted to access my mother’s accounts and review the funds she had left for me.

A bank officer of the Val d’Anfa branch approached me quickly, then went to his desk, presumably to check something. He returned a minute later and said flatly, “We don’t show any active accounts for your mother. They were closed. The funds are gone. There’s nothing left.”

After her death?

I stood there, stunned.

I asked how anyone could have withdrawn funds after she was gone without authorization or a will. He just repeated that the accounts were closed. I asked to speak with the branch manager. He refused, saying I couldn’t talk to the manager because I didn’t have an active account with them. I showed my ID and my mother’s death certificate, and asked for at least the last bank statement. He refused, dismissively.

The Val d’Anfa branch never contacted me again, despite the seriousness of what had happened.

My mother’s bank balance included the monthly allowance His Majesty King Mohammed VI had granted to her after my father’s death, some personal savings, and the proceeds from the sale of two plots of land my father had left her near Rabat. Mom had used only a portion of the land-sale proceeds to clear the house title and make renovations. The bulk of the funds remained.

My mother kept her checkbooks and account records in the safe, to which she had given me the combination, the same safe that Elkabous admitted to breaking into and emptying.

Mom had been clear. She was leaving an ample amount in her bank accounts and an reserve so that I would always have means to live in Morocco when I chose.

As with all of my parents’ belongings, everything was gone. This time, however, a bank agency, meant to safeguard assets, had directly or indirectly enabled the theft. My mother left money in her accounts. It was emptied after her passing. I have no siblings alive. The agency released those funds to an unauthorized party.

Of course, I asked Elkabous the fraudster. And, as with my parents’ home and belongings, he initially denied everything. Then he cycled through a series of stories, often contradicting himself, before finally admitting to yet another crime.

• First, he claimed he knew nothing about the withdrawals or the account closures.
• Then he said he had taken money to repay debts my father supposedly had, even though Dad had passed four years earlier.
• Next, he claimed there was no money left when he checked.
• Then he said my mother had sent a large sum to her family in France.
• After that, he claimed my mother owed him the money.
• Finally, looking me straight in the eye, he admitted he had taken everything, simply because he had decided it belonged to him. Once again, he had stolen what did not belong to him. He no longer even tried to lie. He believed he was untouchable, and he wanted me to know it. He wanted to make me understand that I had lost, that there was nothing I could do to stop him.

All of these twisted lies were delivered in a single conversation, while he, unworthy as he is, sat behind my father’s desk, inside what had once been my father’s office, now disgraced by this criminal’s mere presence, in the foundation he had taken over and corrupted. He lied as if the truth had never meant anything to him. He spoke with the ease of someone who had long since buried every trace of conscience and decency..

Of course, the inconsistencies were obvious. My father could not have contracted new debts four years after his death. My mother was not, and could not have been, financially depleted. She was receiving the monthly allowance from His Majesty the King, had just sold two plots of land, and lived a simple life. A large transfer to France would have required documentation and authorization. In all cases, Mom would have told me. It was all fabrication, until his ultimate admission:

Soufiane Elkabous had emptied my mother’s bank accounts after she had died and stolen the money. Was anything safe from this hardened criminal?

However, this time, unlike at my parents’ home, he could not act under the cover of night. He had to violate the privacy and security of a bank agency. The Val d’Anfa branch allowed Elkabous the fraudster or one of his accomplices, the wrong party either way, to empty and close my mother’s bank accounts after her passing.

Why? Did he walk in with a gun? Did they simply hand it to him?

They went even further by refusing to provide me, her daughter, any transparency, thereby protecting the crime. If this is how a bank branch operates, why wouldn’t any criminal walk in and claim the money of whoever they choose? Isn’t this precisely what happened here?

The bank agency that emptied my mother’s accounts into the hands of a criminal – one with no blood relationship to her, no legal relationship either, no shared surname or maiden name, not named in her will, holding no valid document authorizing withdrawals, and in likely violation of its own banking procedures – would not even allow me, her daughter, with the same last name and proper identification, to speak with a bank manager about the missing funds and improperly closed accounts.

What a dark irony!

Is there anything in Elkabous’s world that is not rotten to the core?

By his own admission, Elkabous is the criminal here. However, the Val d’Anfa branch at the very least facilitated the theft and shares responsibility for it. Was this professional misconduct? Did he have an accomplice inside the branch? BMCI leadership must now investigate, sanction, and repair what happened within it.

Moreover, once the situation became known, the Val d’Anfa agency should have provided me, the rightful heir, with all relevant information about this transaction, including the parties involved, the account details, the amounts, the communications, and any known connection to Elkabous. It should also have alerted BMCI’s management, which in all likelihood would then have escalated the matter to the Moroccan Banking Authority, Bank Al-Maghrib. It does not seem any of that was done. I was never contacted. A full investigation is required. If we cannot trust our bank branches to safeguard deposits, how can society function?

I hope the Moroccan banking authority pursues this case with vigor and determination, wherever the facts lead. I will also evaluate different options. The Val d’Anfa agency failed on multiple levels for this theft to occur. BMCI’s management must now begin repairing the damage by returning to me, as the rightful heir, the funds my mother had entrusted to it and that were wrongly released. The bank may then decide to seek recovery from Elkabous. That is its choice, of course. What cannot be erased, however, is the agency’s failure to safeguard the integrity of its procedures, to protect the funds entrusted to it, and to take responsibility for placing them in the hands of a thief.

My mother’s intention was clear: she left me that money.
Elkabous’s intention was just as clear: the law does not apply to him.
He seizes a foundation created to help others and uses it for his personal needs.
He steals an identity.
He breaks into a private safe.
He takes everything inside.
He forges documents and files them in national registries.
He occupies a house that is not his, without right or title.
He strips it of everything it contains.
Over and over again, without ever facing consequences.
And now, he plunders bank accounts too.

This latest theft committed by Elkabous was made possible by the failures of the Val d’Anfa agency. BMCI must now assume its responsibility and correct the shortcomings of its branch. As for Elkabous, it is time this now notorious criminal to start paying for his crimes.